could not be limited to one author alone; others must have suffered from the same cause, in the same or a greater degree. Nay, we are authorised to conclude, that in proportion to the care bestowed by the author upon any poem, to attain what his age might suppose to be the highest graces of poetry, the greater was the damage which it sustained by the inaccuracy of reciters, or their desire to humble both the sense and diction of the poem to their powers of recollection, and the comprehension of a vulgar audience. It cannot be expected that compositions subjected in this way to mutilation and corruption, should continue to present their original sense or diction; and the accuracy of our editions of popular poetry, unless in the rare event of recovering original or early copies, is lessened in proportion. But the chance of these corruptions is incalculably increased, when we consider that the ballads have been, not in one, but innumerable instances of transmission, liable to similar alterations, through a long course of centuries, during which they have been handed from one ignorant reciter to another, each discarding whatever original words or phrases time or fashion had, in his opinion, rendered obsolete, and substituting anachronisms by expressions taken from the customs of his own day. And here it may be remarked, that the desire of the reciter to be intelligible, however natural and laudable, has been one of the greatest causes of the deterioration of ancient poetry. The minstrel who endeavoured to recite with fidelity the words of the author, might indeed fall into errors of sound and sense, and substitute corruptions for words he did not understand. But the ingenuity of a skilful critic could often, in that case, revive and restore the original meaning; while the corrupted words became, in such cases, a warrant for the authenticity of the whole poem.1 In general, however, the later reciters appear to have been far less desirous to speak the author's words, than to introduce amendments and new readings of their own, which have always produced the effect of modernizing, and usually that of degrading and vulgarizing, the rugged sense and spirit of the antique minstrel. Thus, undergoing from age to age a gradual process of alteration and recomposition, our popular and oral minstrelsy has lost, in a great measure, its original appearance; and the strong touches by which it had been formerly characterised, have been generally smoothed down and destroyed by a process similar to that by which a coin, passing from hand to hand, loses in circulation all the finer marks of the impress. The very fine ballad of Chevy Chase is an example of this degrading species of alchymy, by which the ore of antiquity is deteriorated and adulterated. While Addison, in an age which had never attended to popular poetry, wrote his classical criticism on that ballad, he naturally took for his text the ordinary stall-copy, although he might, and ought to have suspected, that a ditty couched in the language nearly of his own time, could not be the same with that which Sir Philip Sidney, more than one hundred years before, had spoken of, as being "evil apparelled in the dust and cobwebs of an uncivilized age." The venerable Bishop Percy was the first to correct this mistake, by producing a copy of the song, as old at least as the reign of Henry VII., bearing the name of the author or transcriber, Richard Sheale. But even the Rev. Editor himself fell under the mistake of supposing the modern Chevy Chase to be a new copy of the original ballad, expressly modernized by some one later bard. On the contrary, the current version now universally allowed to have been produced by the gradual alterations of numerous reciters, during two centuries, in the course of which the ballad has been gradually moulded into a composition bearing only a general resemblance to the original-expressing the same events and sentiments in much smoother language, and more flowing and easy versification; but losing in poetical fire and energy, and in the vigour and pithiness of the expression, a great deal more than it has gained in suavity of diction. Thus : "The Percy owt of Northumberland, Becomes "The stout Earl of Northumberland A vow to God did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods Three summer days to take," &c. From this, and other examples of the same kind, of which many might be quoted, we must often expect to find the remains of Minstrel poetry, composed originally for the courts of princes and halls of nobles, disguised in the more modern and vulgar dialect in which they have been of late sung to the frequenters of the rustic ale-bench. It is unnecessary to mention more than one other remarkable and humbling instance, printed in the curious collection entitled, a Ballad-Book, where we find, in the words of the ingenious Editor,3 a stupid ballad, printed as it was sung 1 An instance occurs in the valuable old ballad, called Auld Maitland. The reciter repeated a verse, descriptive of the defence of a castle, thus: "With spring-wall, stanes, and goads of airn Among them fast he threw." for casting darts or stones; the restoration of which reading gives a precise and clear sense to the lines. 2 See Perry's Reliques, vol. i. p. 2. 3 Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq. The Ballad-Book was printed in 1823, and inscribed to Sir Walter Scott; the im Spring-wall, is a corruption of springald, a military engine pression consisting of only thirty copies. in Anrandale, founded on the well-known story of the will be accomplished, by shortly noticing the popular "To what base uses may we not return!" Sometimes a still more material and systematic difference appears between the poems of antiquity, as they were originally composed, and as they now exis.. This occurs in cases where the longer metrical romances, which were in fashion during the middle ages, were reduced to shorter compositions, in order that they might be chanted before an inferior audience. A ballad, for example, of Thomas of Erceldoune, and his intrigues with the Queen of Faery-Land, is, or has been, long current in Teviotdale, and other parts of Scotland. Two ancient copies of a poem, or romance, on the same subject, and containing very often the same words and turns of expression, are preserved in the libraries of the Cathedral of Lincoln anu Peterborough. We are left to conjecture whether the originals of such ballads have been gradually contracted into their modern shape by the impatience of later audiences, combined with the lack of memory displayed by more modern reciters, or whether, in particular cases, some ballad-maker may have actually set himself to work to retrench the old details of the minstrels, and regularly and systematically to modernize, and if the phrase be permitted, to balladize, a metrical romance. We are assured, however, that "Roswal and Lilian" was sung through the streets of Edinburgh two generations since; and we know that the Romance of "Sir Eger, Sir Grime, and Sir Greysteil," had also its own particular chant, or tune. The stall-copies of both these romances, as they now exist, are very much abbreviated, and probably exhibit them when they were undergoing, or had nearly undergone, the process of being cut down into ballads. It is now generally admitted that the Scots and Picts, however differing otherwise, were each by descent a Celtic race; that they advanced in a course of victory somewhat farther than the present frontier between England and Scotland, and about the end of the eleventh century subdued and rendered tributary the Britons of Strathcluyd, who were also a Celtic race like themselves. Excepting, therefore, the provinces of Berwickshire and the Lothians, which were chiefly inhabited by an Anglo-Saxon population, the whole of Scotland was peopled by different tribes of the same aboriginal race,2—a race passionately addicted to music, as appears from the kindred Celtic nations of Irish, Welsh, and Scottish, preserving each to this day a style and character of music peculiar to their own country, though all three bear marks of general resemblance to each other. That of Scotland, in particular, is early noticed and extolled by ancient authors, and its remains, to which the natives are passionately attached, are still found to afford pleasure even to those who cultivate the art upon a more refined and varied system. This skill in music did not, of course, exist without a corresponding degree of talent for a species of poetry, adapted to the habits of the country, celebrating the victories of triumphant clans, pouring forth lamentations over fallen heroes, and recording such marvellous adventures as were calculated to amuse individual families around their household fires, or the whole tribe when regaling in the hall of the chief. It hap pened, however, singularly enough, that while the music continued to be Celtic in its general measure, the language of Scotland, most commonly spoken, began to be that of their neighbours, the English, introduced by the multitude of Saxons who thronged to the court of Malcolm Canmore and his successors; Taking into consideration the various indirect chan- by the crowds of prisoners of war, whom the repeated nels by which the popular poetry of our ancestors has ravages of the Scots in Northumberland carried off as been transmitted to their posterity, it is nothing sur- slaves to their country; by the influence of the inhaprising that it should reach us in a mutilated and de-bitants of the richest and most populous provinces in graded state, and that it should little correspond with | Scotland, Berwickshire, namely, and the Lothians, the ideas we are apt to form of the first productions of national genius; nay, it is more to be wondered at that we possess so many ballads of considerable merit, than that the much greater number of them which must have once existed, should have perished before our time. Having given this brief account of ballad poetry in general, the purpose of the present prefatory remarks over the more mountainous; lastly, by the superiority which a language like the Anglo-Saxon, considerably refined, long since reduced to writing, and capable of expressing the wants, wishes, and sentiments of the speakers, must have possessed over the jargon of various tribes of Irish and British origin, limited and contracted in every varying dialect, and differing, at the same time, from each other. This superiority being 1 These two ancient Romances are reprinted in a volume of "Early Metrical Tales," edited by Mr. David Laing, Edinburgh, 1826, small 8vo. Only 175 copies printed. 2 The author seems to have latterly modified his original opinion on some parts of this subject. In his reviewal of Mr. P. F. Tytler's History of Scotland (Quart. Rev. vol. xli. p. 328,) he says, speaking of the period of the final subjugn tion of the Picts, "It would appear the Scandinavians had The usual stanza which was selected as the most natural to the language and the sweetest to the ear, after the complex system of the more courtly mea considered, and a fair length of time being allowed, it is no wonder that, while the Scottish people retained their Celtic music, and many of their Celtic customs, together with their Celtic dynasty, they should never-sures, used by Thomas of Erceldoune, was laid aside, theless have adopted, throughout the Lowlands, the Saxon language, while in the Highlands they retained the Celtic dialect, along with the dress, arms, manners, and government of their fathers. was that which, when originally introduced, we very often find arranged in two lines, thus: "Earl Douglas on his milk-white steed, most like a baroa bold, Rode foremost of his company, whose armour shone like gold;" but which, after being divided into four, constitutes "Earl Douglas on his milk-white steed, Rode foremost of his company, Whose armour shone like gold." The breaking of the lines contains a plainer inti There was, for a time, a solemn national recognisance that the Saxon language and poetry had not originally been that of the royal family. For, at the coronations of the kings of Scotland, previous to Alexander III., it was a part of the solemnity, that a Celtic bard stepped forth, so soon as the king assumed his seat upon the fated stone, and recited the genealogy of the monarch in Celtic verse, setting forth his descent, and the right which he had by birth to occupy the place of sovereignty. For a time, no doubt, the Celtic songs and poems remained current in the Low-mation how the stanza ought to be read, than every lands, while any remnant of the language yet lasted. The Gaelic or Irish bards, we are also aware, occasionally strolled into the Lowlands, where their music might be received with favour, even after their recitation was no longer understood. But though these aboriginal poets showed themselves at festivals and other places of public resort, it does not appear that, as in Homer's time, they were honoured with high places at the board, and savoury morsels of the chine; but they seem rather to have been accounted fit company for the feigned fools and sturdy beggars, with whom they were ranked by a Scottish statute.' Time was necessary wholly to eradicate one language and introduce another; but it is remarkable that, at the death of Alexander the Third, the last Scottish king of the pure Celtic race, the popular lament for his death was composed in Scoto-English, and, though closely resembling the modern dialect, is the earliest example we have of that language, whether in prose or poetry.2 About the same time flourished the celebrated Thomas the Rhymer, whose poem, written in English, or Lowland Scottish, with the most anxious attention both to versification and alliteration, forms, even as it now exists, a very curious specimen of the early romance. Such complicated construction was greatly too concise for the public ear, which is best amused by a looser diction, in which numerous repetitions, and prolonged descriptions, enable the comprehension of the audience to keep up with the voice of the singer or reciter, and supply the gaps which in general must have taken place, either through a failure of attention in the hearers, or of voice and distinct enunciation on the part of the minstrel. A curious account of the reception of an Irish or Celtic bard at a festival, is given in Sir John Holland's Buke of the Houlat, Bannatyne edition, p. liii. "Whan Alexander our king was ded, Wha Scotland led in luve and lee, Away was sons of ale and bred, Of wine and wax, of game and glee," &c. one could gather from the original mode of writing The varieties of stanza thus adopted for popular poetry were not, we may easily suppose, left long unemployed. In frontier regions, where men are continually engaged in active enterprise, betwixt the task of defending themselves and annoying their neighbours, they may be said to live in an atmosphere of danger, the excitation of which is peculiarly favourable to the encouragement of poetry. Hence, the expressions of Lesly the historian, quoted in the following Introduction, in which he paints the delight taken by the Borderers in their peculiar species of music, and the rhyming ballads in which they celebrated the feats of their ancestors, or recorded their own ingenious stratagems in predatory warfare. In the same Introduction, the reader will find the reasons alleged why the taste for song was and must have been longer 3 This, and most of the other romances here referred to, may be found reprinted in a volume, entitled, "Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland," (Edin. 1822. Small 4to.) Edited by Mr. David Laing, and inscribed to Sir Walter Scott. 4 See Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. i p. 213 preserved on the Border than in the interior of the [ of an anonymous editor of three 12mo volumes, which country. Having thus made some remarks on early poetry Of manuscript records of ancient ballads, very few The press, however, at length superseded the ne- Some persons, however, seem to have had what their contemporaries probably thought the bizarre taste of gathering and preserving collections of this fugitive poetry. Hence the great body of ballads in the Pepysian collection at Cambridge, made by that Secretary Pepys, whose Diary is so very amusing; and hence the still more valuable deposit, in three volumes folio, in which the late Duke John of Roxburghe took so much pleasure, that he was often found enlarging it with fresh acquisitions, which he pasted in and registered with his own hand. The first attempt, however, to reprint a collection of ballads for a class of readers distinct from those for whose use the stall-copies were intended, was that appeared in London, with engravings. These volumes came out in various years, in the beginning of the 18th century. The editor writes with some flippancy, but with the air of a person superior to the ordinary drudgery of a mere collector. His work appears to have been got up at considerable expense, and the general introductions and historical illustrations which are prefixed to the various ballads, are written with an accuracy of which such a subject had not till then been deemed worthy. The principal part of the collection consists of stall-ballads, neither possessing much poetical merit, nor any particular rarity or curiosity. Still this original Miscellany holds a considerable value amongst collectors; and as the three volumes-being published at different times-are seldom found together, they sell for a high price when complete. We may now turn our eyes to Scotland, where the facility of the dialect, which cuts off the consonants in the termination of the words, so as greatly to simplify the task of rhyming, and the habits, dispositions, and manners of the people, were of old so favourable to the composition of ballad-poetry, that, had the Scottish songs been preserved, there is no doubt a very curious history might have been composed by means of minstrelsy only, from the reign of Alexander III. in 1285, down to the close of the Civil Wars in 1745. That materials for such a collection existed, cannot be disputed, since the Scottish historians often refer to old ballads as anthorities for general tradition. But their regular preservation was not to be hoped for or expected. Successive garlands of song sprung, flourished, faded, and were forgotten, in their turn; and the names of a few specimens are only preserved, to show us how abundant the display of these wild flowers had been. Like the natural free gifts of Flora, these poetical garlands can only be successfully sought for where the land is uncultivated; and civilisation and increase of learning are sure to banish them, as the plough of the agriculturist bears down the mountain daisy. Yet it is to be recorded with some interest, that the earliest surviving specimen of the Scottish press, is a Miscellany of Millar and Chapman,2 which preserves a considerable fund of Scottish popular poetry, and among other things, no bad specimen of the gests of Robin Hood, "the English ballad-maker's joy," and whose renown seems to have been as freshly preserved in the north as on the southern shores of the Tweed. | There were probably several collections of Scottish ballads and metrical pieces during the seventeenth century. A very fine one, belonging to Lord Montagu, الأول 1 "A Collection of Old Ballads, collected from the best and most ancient Copies extant, with Introductions, Historical and Critical, illustrated with copperplates." This anonymous collection, first published in 1723, was so well received, that it soon passed to a second edition, and two more volumes were added in 1723 and 1725. The third edition of the first lume is dated 1727.-ED. 2 A facsimile reprint, in black-letter, of the Original Tracts which issued from the press of Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar at Edinburgh, in the year 1508, was published under the title of "The Knightly Tale of Golagrus and Gawane, and other Ancient Poems," in 1827, 4to. The "litil gesto" of Robin Hood, referred to in the text, is a fragment of a piecu contained in Ritson's Collection.-En. perished in the fire which consumed Ditton House, about twenty years ago. The most formidable of these were directed by Joseph Ritson, a man of acute observation, profound research, and great labour. These valuable attributes were unhappily combined with an eager irritability of temper, which induced him to treat antiquarian trifles with the same seriousness which men of the world re drive controversies into personal quarrels, by neglecting, in literary debate, the courtesies of ordinary society. It ought to be said, however, by one who knew him well, that this irritability of disposition was a constitutional and physical infirmity; and that Ritson's extreme attachment to the severity of truth, corresponded to the rigour of his criticisms upon the labours of others. He seems to have attacked Bishop Percy with the greater animosity, as bearing no goodwill to the hierarchy, in which that prelate held a distinguished place. James Watson, in 1706, published, at Edinburgh, a miscellaneous collection in three parts, containing some ancient poetry. But the first editor who seems to have made a determined effort to preserve our ancient popular poetry, was the well-known Allan Ram-serve for matters of importance, and disposed him to say, in his Evergreen, containing chiefly extracts from the ancient Scottish Makers, whose poems have been preserved in the Bannatyne Manuscript, but exhibiting amongst them some popular ballads. Amongst these is the Battle of Harlaw, apparently from a modernized copy, being probably the most ancient Scottish historical ballad of any length now in existence.' He also inserted in the same collection, the genuine Scottish Border ballad of Johnnie Armstrong, copied from the recitation of a descendant of the unfortunate hero, in the sixth generation. This poet also included in the Evergreen, Hardyknute, which, though evidently modern, is a most spirited and beautiful imitation of the ancient ballad. In a subsequent collection of lyrical pieces, called the Tea-Table Miscellany, Allan Ramsay inserted several old ballads, such as Cruel Barbara Allan, The Bonnie Earl of Murray, There came a Ghost to Margaret's door, and two or three others. But his unhappy plan of writing new words to old tunes, without at the same time preserving the ancient verses, led him, with the assistance of "some ingenious young gentlemen," to throw aside many originals, the preservation of which would have been much more interesting than any thing which has been substituted in their stead.2 In fine, the task of collecting and illustrating ancient popular poetry, whether in England or Scotland, was never executed by a competent person, possessing the necessary powers of selection and annotation, till it was undertaken by Dr. Percy, afterwards Bishop of Dromore in Ireland. This reverend gentleman, himself a poet, and ranking high among the literati of the day, commanding access to the individuals and institutions which could best afford him materials, gave the public the result of his researches in a work entitled "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," in three volumes, published in London 1765, which has since gone through four editions. The taste with which the materials were chosen, the extreme felicity with which they were illustrated, the display at once of antiquarian knowledge and classical reading which the collection indicated, render it difficult to imitate, and impossible to excel, a work which must always be held among the first of its class in point of merit, though not actually the foremost in point of time. But neither the high character of the work, nor the rank and respectability of the author, could protect him or his labours, from the invidious attacks of criticism. 1 See Appendix, Note A. 2 See Appendix, Note B. a Sir Walter Scott corresponded frequently with the Bishop Ritson's criticism, in which there was too much horse-play, was grounded on two points of accusation. The first point regarded Dr. Percy's definition of the order and office of minstrels, which Ritson considered as designedly overcharged, for the sake of giving an undue importance to his subject. The second objec tion respected the liberties which Dr. Percy had taken with his materials, in adding to, retrenching, and improving them, so as to bring them nearer to the taste of his own period. We will take some brief notice of both topics. First, Dr. Percy, in the first edition of his work, certainly laid himself open to the charge of having given an inaccurate, and somewhat exaggerated account, of the English Minstrels, whom he defined to be an "order of men in the middle ages, who subsisted by the arts of poetry and music, and sung to the harp the verses which they themselves composed." The reverend editor of the Reliques produced in support of this definition many curious quotations, to show that in many instances the persons of these minstrels had been honoured and respected, their performances applauded and rewarded by the great and the courtly, and their craft imitated by princes themselves. Against both these propositions, Ritson made a determined opposition. He contended, and probably with justice, that the minstrels were not necessarily poets, or in the regular habit of composing the verses which they sung to the harp; and indeed, that the word minstrel, in its ordinary acceptation, meant no more than musician. Dr. Percy, from an amended edition of his Essay on Minstrelsy, prefixed to the fourth edition of the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, seems to have been, to a certain point, convinced by the critic's reasoning. for he has extended the definition impugned by Ritson, and the minstrels are thus described as singing verses "composed by themselves or others." This we of Dromore, at the time when he was collecting the materials of the "Border Minstrelsy."-ED 4 See Appendix, Note C. |